locus of control

There's always a trigger.  A putting a name to a thought.

The destructive chaos of the past week has left me wanting to only sit in a corner.  Feeling lonely and out of control and mad.  Mad at those who believe they know me, who've undeservedly caught a glimpse at our life.  I've allowed it, and I am ashamed.

But I am smarter than I remember, some days.  And in the white noise tonight I found the name.

In the loneliness of our life, we seek energy from the outside.  I seek energy from the outside.  Naturally I am an introvert.  I process internally, gather energy from being alone, crave quiet time, and tolerate only small doses of highly social situations.

But life has happened, hurt has happened.  I've allowed myself to develop an external locus of identity.

And I've lost a certain level of control.

Interesting, then.  People can be selfish and presumptuous and arrogant.  But what satan means for evil, God will use for good I believe.  There's always the inciting incident.

Now it's time to regain control.  To draw back in, without withdrawing.  To create in this new home a safe place and also allow myself room to grow.

Regaining, repositioning, recollecting a locus of control.  Others have influenced, swayed, contributed far too much.  Too much has been lost and there's so much space to fill.

I sat down, intending to be much more profound and cohesive.  But I don't have this figured out yet.  Take it as the confession it is, and be gentle.

eyes to see

I said I was done crying about it.   But I lied.  The tears are flowing today and I can't quite sort those these feelings of confusion or inadequacy.

And I can't find a safe place.

Nowhere to go to talk, no listening ear, no comfort.  And the fear and the hurt bounces off the walls, reverberating and returning to my ears, deafening almost.

I know the tears will stop though.  They have to.  And surely this season is almost over.  I feel as though I've lived a lifetime in this storm and I just can't breathe here anymore.

I knew it would come to this.  It had to -- I doubt I could have ever gotten us here on my own.  But, goodness, it hurts.

And I am so confused.

I mean very little to most.  So very little.

There is so much deception I can't wade through it.  What is true, what is manipulation.  The tears fog my vision and I just don't know what else to do but pray for eyes to see.

I want a reset button.  I want to wipe the slate clean.  I want to take it all, sift it out.  See what makes the  cut.  And I want to do it quickly.

I am tired of making excuses for others.  For allowing myself to be hurt, in the name of grace.  For being in a corner all by myself... because it's not like Jesus to defend one another?

No wait.  That doesn't sound right.  But regardless I am fighting this fight alone.  Dodging bullets and punches and reminding myself these people are hurt, they didn't mean it, they have no role models.  Or reminding myself of what I've been so often told...

To choose us would be the hardest decision.  

It really can only get better.  With the war being waged around me, I am afraid to imagine the many more wrong turns it could take.  But I do know space is being cleared and broken places are being strengthened.  I do know that.

But I wish I was protected.

I wish I was comforted.

I wish I was not always required to be the strongest person in the room.

Or that when the tears started like that... well.

It just wasn't supposed to be this way.

I wish the fear and hurt I feel on no one.  The uncertainty is a plague I can't escape.

And it's just all I can think to pray for anymore, that someone else would start making the hard decisions.  Doing the hard things.

These new eyes are adjusting to the light.  It burns, but vision is coming.  It's the pangs of healing that hurt the worst, it seems.  It's the being put back together.

one year later

Birthdays, more so even than New Years, are a time for reflection.  They are milestones, launching us from what has been to what will be, and give us all kinds of false hope for who we think we ought to be twelve months from now.

Each year I get older, I stop on my birthday and feel around to see if I feel any older.  Never do.

Birthdays aren't important, really, unless you weren't supposed to make it to the next one.  Or unless this is the first birthday with someone special.

In some ways, Friday was both.

It's not so much I didn't think we'd survive, but I questioned how.

This time last year, I questioned how I'd deliver a baby alone.  How I'd survive the top of every one of those contractions, causing me to vomit.  How I'd survive one final semester of undergrad. How I'd pay rent.  How I'd go back to work after three weeks of maternity leave.  Mostly, how I'd raise this little boy... not yet born... all by myself.

I woke up Friday morning, trying to fathom how we'd gotten here.  To a year later.  Where did 365 days go?

Friday was Judah's birthday.  He is a year old.  This was his first birthday and when I look at him I can't believe we made it.

But we sure did.

This was the fastest year of my life and I am overwhelmed.

So much has changed in such a short period of time, I can't imagine when Judah blows out two candles where we will be.

~

Survival is not a choice.

And I have no words, but thankfulness for this small, loud, precious, cuddly, wriggly, big-footed, brown eyed boy.

What a blessing he is, and oh how I don't deserve him.

May this year find us in less of a battle.

unless you have to say it

deep breath. 

I am overwhelmed with the weight of it, on my chest like something sitting.  Right there.  Where I breathe.

I don't understand why things happen.  I don't understand why my life, our life now, has played out the way it has, but I am heavy with it.

One year later, I should be writing about something else.  About candles and smash cakes and happy birthday to yous.  But that is not what's on my mind tonight.  To get to that, to the confetti, I have to sort through this.

All of this.

Tears came today.  After so long holding back.  After short bursts and welling, of self control and self admonishing.  It is silly to cry alone.  It is embarrassing to let someone else watch.

But tears came today and my eyes are a little swollen from it.  Listening, for the first time in years, I was comforted by the silence because I knew it meant he heard.

And the heaviness was alleviated when I said the words out loud.

Some things take so much courage.  And monsters are defeated when given a name.

Easier said than done, he says.  Unless you have to say it.

And I had to say it.  

I've said it before, half heartedly, leaving the door cracked.

I allowed the hurt, which is the saddest part.  I allowed it to continue and I allowed it to cut deep and I exposed Judah to it and I am sorry for that.

But we pray for answers, even when we don't know what they are.  We have sneaking suspicions we won't like them, but we pray for them anyway.  And often I pray He'd control it, I know I can't and I don't know best, and would He please fix what I cannot.

So sometimes, the answer is the decision is made for us.  He chooses what we're not strong enough to choose.  Hollowing out space.

And oh how thankful I am.

deep breath.

That's what I had to say out loud, you know.  How thankful am I.  I've been thinking this thought often... deep moments of gratitude for the survival and the place we've found ourselves in.  But thankful for this?

I am thankful.

I am thankful I don't have to always make the hard decisions.

And for the deep, rushing feeling of being able to breathe again.

Bless our hearts.  What could it mean to have love reciprocated?  Time valued?  Hearts cherished?

Deep, rushing.  Space created, I am thankful and I am so relieved.

Hurt.  Heartbroken.  Confused.  But so very thankful.

I scoop him up and he hugs my neck now.  And I wonder how he could not be loved.  How is it so easy to walk out on this little one?  I don't linger on this thought, knowing it's my fault.  It is not him they walk out on, but me.

deep breath.

Quietly tonight I pray for the one who won't walk out.

If you know him, send him our way.

There was quite a bit of room made here recently.  And I'm done crying for it.